There is a lot of buzz about call center jobs going overseas. If we are to believe the hype, within a few years all the call centre jobs will be far off in Asia. It is true that a lot of 24 hour call center jobs have moved over to India, but that does not mean that there are not a lot of good ones left. If you have a college liberal arts degree, in fact, and are having trouble really finding the right occupation, a call center job might be just what you need.
I have a friend who has worked her way up to a call center manager job. When she first applied for it, a lot of her friends went out of their way to discourage her. Some of them had nightmare stories about working at phone banks, while other ones were almost certain that there was no future in working at a call center. How wrong they all were! Although she was not crazy about working a call center sales job at first, she held on and kept working. There was a lot of turnover, but she hung on. Within a year, she had been promoted three time, and had made more money than in any other occupation she had worked in.
Of course, there are many different kinds of call center jobs, and some of them are better for certain people than others. Working for a help center, for example, is a pretty straight-forward occupation. Usually you have to have a certain amount of specialized knowledge, but often they will train you in what you need to know. It is pretty low pressure, because you do not have to sell anything to anyone. All that you really have to do is to help solve technical problems.
Other call center jobs, by contrast, are very high pressure. If you work in a call marketing firm, you will have to make a certain amount in sales or else you will not hit your quota. If you are not good at sales, this can be pretty stressful. If you are good at making cold calls, however, these call center jobs can be a gold mine. They offer less security than a help center, but a lot more opportunity. It is a trade off, and it usually becomes clear pretty quickly whether or not you can handle the pressure.
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